My Life Must Forfeit Pay

A/N: It is as it ever was: JKR is the creator and owner of this world, and we are merely happy players in her sandbox. Emily Brontë remains the author of the poetry that inspired this little foray into the Potterverse.

And sshg316 remains the Beta to End All Betas, making me realize how often I take liberties with minor punctuation and how frequently I use a certain word that the Brits do not. Thanks, my dear, for saving my ass once again!

Warning: This chapter is one that earned this story its rating (Brazen). If you are put off by violence and its aftermath, please do not read on. There is more than one death here.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“My Life Must Forfeit Pay”

What I love shall come like visitant of air,

Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;

Who loves me, no word of mine shall e’er betray,

Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.

- Emily Brontë, from “The Visionary”

Hermione rose at last and stretched her arms over her head. She had accomplished her task. She had found him and given him his medal and his memories. She would meet the boat on Tuesday and get on with her life. He would restore what he had given up, or he would not. She would leave him in peace.

She stared up into the morning sky and wept.

~~~~~~~~~~

Snape walked on, trying to think. The boat might be back this afternoon, if the crew felt like coming ahead of schedule. Riley had told her it would be there on Tuesday, though, and he could simply forget to enlighten her himself. He could maneuver events to keep her here another week.

Or two.

Or forever.

He wanted her to go away immediately. He wanted her to stay for the rest of her life. He was in awe of her. Awe. Yes, that was the word. He wondered at her. He feared her. He was amazed by her.

Surely she was simply being kind. Surely Ron Weasley had been wrong. She might have loved the story of Severus Snape, but she could not love the man himself, the ugly, cruel, bitter man. She could not love the man who had fled from everything and who spent his days now wandering and lost and waiting.

Yet what had he seen in her eyes? It was something he had never even glimpsed before. Yet it was familiar. It felt like home.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hermione wiped her sleeve across her face. This would never do. She needed a cup of tea and a bite of breakfast. She would decide what to do after that. She raised her chin in a show of bravado she did not feel and started back toward the cottage.

~~~~~~~~~~

As Snape rounded the promontory, he could see the distant dock come into view. A tiny blue boat bobbed next to it in the waves. He frowned. It was much too small to be The Grace. It appeared to be empty. He scanned the shore and saw no one. Curious. He continued toward the dock cautiously. The hair on the back of his neck tingled. Something was very wrong.

He was still several yards away from the hut when he glimpsed the fisherman. The yellow slicker was floating beneath the dock, now visible, now hidden by another swell. As Snape took a few more careful steps toward him, he saw that the body was missing its head.

Snape turned away, his stomach heaving. He faced Riley’s hut, which stood quiet and still. He stared at it, every sense heightened, every sound amplified. The wooden stool next to the door lay splintered in the grass. The chess board had been blasted into several segments, and the pieces littered the ground. Still scanning the area for movement--any movement--Snape stepped closer.

And he suddenly realized what he was looking at. Snape had seen horrors before. He had seen blood and destruction. He had even caused some himself. He had never become accustomed to it. He hoped he never would.

It was worse when the corpse, the mangled, twisted, sad little corpse, belonged to someone you knew. He did not have to look at the face--though he forced himself to turn the body over--to know that his chess partner had met a horrifying end.

“Riley,” he breathed, his voice catching in his throat. The man had been a good companion in this self-imposed exile of his. Snape thought with despair that his own presence here must have been the reason for this brutality. He slumped beside his friend and mourned for him. Even if he had his wand and was willing to use it again, Riley was long past the help of magic. He stared bleakly out at the sea.

And he realized suddenly that the butcher must still be here. Whoever had done this had enjoyed the job far too much. He recognized the signs of that particular kind of sadism. In fact, the signs looked distressingly familiar.

If, indeed, he himself had been the cause of it, then there was likely only one place the murderer would be headed. He leapt to his feet, panicked. Hermione. Whoever had wreaked this havoc was now on his way to her.

~~~~~~~~~~

She crested the ridge and stared down at the lonely cottage before her. This was where he had chosen to retreat from the world. It was a Spartan, self-contained little existence, just like the man who lived here.

She cocked her head curiously. From this angle, with the light glinting off the window, it looked as though someone was home. She shrugged off the impression. It must be a trick of the light. Snape had gone off in the other direction. She would have seen him if he had arrived back here ahead of her.

At least, she hoped so. She realized that she did not want to see him right at this moment. Her face was still streaked with dried tears. She had not bothered to brush her hair this morning. She had, in fact, been in such a rush to leave, to take him the flask containing his memories and discharge her last duty, that she was not sure she had even latched the door properly.

The door stood firmly shut now.

Her hands felt suddenly clammy. This was ridiculous, but she thought, somehow, impossibly, that she could just detect the slightest shimmer in the air.

It felt like the ripple of magic.

Had Snape somehow arrived here ahead of her after all? Was he using his wand for the first time on the island? Was he even now putting back the silvered memories he had torn from his mind? Was he remembering Lily and James and George and Dumbledore? Was he rediscovering the horrible tasks the Headmaster had demanded of him?

She wanted to run down the hill and stop him. This was all her fault. That she could be so arrogant as to think she knew what he needed and how to help him....

She took a deep breath and braced herself for what she would find inside. She walked resolutely to the door of the cottage and grasped the latch firmly, swinging the door open.

The cottage was empty.

She closed the door carefully behind her. She still felt that curious ripple. Her hands still felt clammy. She stared into the shadowed room, holding her breath.

And he shimmered into view in front of her. She gasped as the long, pale, twisted face of Antonin Dolohov emerged from the fading Disllusionment Charm and smiled nastily at her.

“You,” she breathed, her voice trembling.

He inclined his head slightly, still smiling. “I am flattered,” he said quietly. His voice chilled her to the bone. “I was not sure I had... made an impression on you.”

She tried to steady her breathing, but flashes of that face had haunted her regularly for years. She took in his long coat, the wand held casually in one hand, the fedora that shadowed his glittering eyes. His dress was different: the Death Eater himself was not.

“Thank you,” he said mockingly. “I had given the traitor up for dead. You led me right to him. And now I get to have you both.”

Her breath caught in her chest. She raised her chin slightly. “You can thank him yourself,” she said, her voice a touch louder than she wished but otherwise steady. “He’ll be here in just a minute.”

Dolohov chuckled. “Will he?” he asked. “How very nice. I’ve got a present for him.”

He reached into his pocket and held out his left hand to her. Perched on his palm was a carved wooden chess piece, the black paint flaking off it.

She gasped again. “Bastard!” she croaked. “What have you done!”

Dolohov laughed, the evil sound echoing in the tiny room. “I can’t tell you how lovely it is to meet you again, little Mudblood,” he replied. “It’s been worth the wait.” He took a single step toward her. “Let’s see how that little fantasy I developed in Azkaban plays out in reality, shall we?”

She bent double, grasping her arms around her, and a moan came from her lips.

Dolohov leaned back, enjoying the sight of pure terror. He preferred his victims this way. As a child, he had tormented rabbits for fun. He had moved on. Rabbits could not moan in fear the way a human being could. He liked the sound.

Hermione continued to whimper, leaning into the table now for support. “No,” she sobbed, raising one hand in supplication. “Please...”

Dolohov eyed her contemptuously. In his imagination, she had put up a bit of a fight, but perhaps he had wounded her even more severely than he thought the last time they had met. He obviously inspired blind panic in her. He growled, “Oh, get up, girl. Show some courage.”

Hermione continued to writhe on the table, her pleas now almost incoherent. She tossed her head to one side, her eyes rolled back in her head, and Dolohov took a step toward her again, revulsion in his features now.

“You useless excuse,” he snarled savagely, “you sent me back there! I should have finished you off in the Department of Mysteries!” He reached down to grab the hand that was waving in his face--

--and found himself staring into the cool fury of Hermione Granger holding the large, very sharp kitchen knife in her other hand. She slashed at his face with deadly accuracy, cutting deep into his cheek.

With a scream, he fell back, and Hermione instantly grasped his wand hand, twisting it until she heard the distinctive crack of snapping bone.

Dolohov roared in pain and slapped her full in the face with his good arm. Hermione was thrown back against the closed door, nearly dropping the knife and grinding her teeth from the force of the blow. Breathing hard, Dolohov lunged across the table at her, trying again to loosen her grip on the knife. She darted out of his reach, slashing at his arm as she moved.

She whirled once more, assessing his position and adjusting her stance to face him. He had transferred his wand from his now useless hand to the hand unaccustomed to casting, but he was still not as clumsy as she could wish. He aimed the wand, sending a shot of purple flame at her. She ducked and bobbed, having anticipated it, and it glanced off the wall millimeters from her ear. He aimed again, and another burst of flame shot across the room, striking the arm holding the knife. She released the weapon with a sharp wail.

Her lungs felt ready to burst. The table was again between them, and she grasped the edge, slamming it up and into his snarling face. He howled and staggered back as, still holding the edge of the table, Hermione slammed it into him again, sending his wand flying.

With a lurch, he suddenly pushed the table back against her, pinning her to the floor. Her fingers scrabbled to find purchase on the knife, just out of easy reach, but she managed only to slice her thumb on its razor-sharp edge.

He stomped hard on her ankle, eliciting an agonized yowl from her as the muscle and bone compressed under his boot heel. He reached past her, pressing the table down onto her chest, trying to grasp the knife handle, but rage took hold of her and gave her a strength she had not known herself capable of, and she found the handle first, raised the knife, and plunged it into his chest with desperate fury.

As his blood shot out of the wound, washing over her and blinding her, and the world began to go black, her last thought was of Severus. She wondered if he was already dead. She wondered if he would forgive her.